Emmitt Smith Tries Talking Pig Instead of Pigskin

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Emmitt Smith's brief career as an ESPN talking head came to an end when he, to quote the man himself, got "debacled" by the English language. An occasional slip here or there is understandable, especially when you're excited about your subject, but Emmitt was too prone to gaffes. Every time he was on the air, it was like being a character in a time travel movie who can't change the past and just has to sit and watch something awful happen.

So it wasn't for him, but he's moved on and found other ways to stay busy. One of them is a joint project with the National Pork Board to find the ultimate tailgating recipe with the winner getting to sit down and share some swine with Emmitt at the Super Bowl in Miami. Pretty sweet (and tasty!) deal, except for the troubling little part of the deal where Emmitt has to go on TV to talk about pork.

"For fans that are going to the ball game, they have an opportunity now to tailgate at a brand new stadium and smoke it up and saranate the whole stadium itself. To me tailgating is a part of gameday experience. And what we found is that 42 percent of the people prefer pork over the other meat. And at tailgate parties I can understand why because pork is easy, easy to cook, its simple and it's affordable, and so going to gameday stadium, look for everyone out there to be tailgatin. To be using some type of pork meat on their grills."

Saranate is a real head-scratcher. Let's assume he doesn't mean sarin-ate, as in spraying deadly sarin gas over the entire stadium. Does he mean marinate? It doesn't make any sense, outside of actually being a word that has something to do with food, but he couldn't mean serenade, could he? Satiate is the best fit, but that just doesn't sound like a Emmittism.

And the other big thing that jumps out is that 42 percent of people prefer pork over the other meat. He says it with so much confidence and so much authority that you have to believe he doesn't realize that most people like something other than pork. Maybe pork wins a plurality of the votes, but it's hardly the tailgating mandate he'd have you believe.

Those analytical loopholes are why Emmitt wasn't right for television in the first place. Well, those and calling Tashard Choice "Dashard" and mistaking the state of Minnesota for the city of Minnesota and, well, that whole interview makes it pretty clear why extemporaneous speech should be avoided at all costs.